The Honeycombed Heart

So much time and effort spent 

trying to figure people out, 

putting them in a box 

of one’s own understanding.  

What they don’t see is 

the deep cavernous rivers 

of pain and suffering 

raging well below the surface. 

So much of what we do 

is an effort to contain it, to hide it, 

to present a smoothed over

surface to the casual observer.

But the current carves a course 

we have precious little control over 

and honeycombs our hearts

with airspaces of emptiness

(drowning us in loneliness)

***

Wayward Children

Early Morning Library

The basketball practice drop off for Elias this morning was a 6am affair that got me to work earlier than usual.  I am not typically here when it is still dark and so I got a different look at this part of the city.  I thought the library looked particularly lovely and had to scope it out a bit.  Fortunately, it is not so bitter cold this morning as it has been recently.

The words carved in stone at the top indicate this library was built with the help of Andrew Carnegie which reminds me of the equally beautiful if not substantially smaller library in the town I grew up in.  It was also a Carnegie library and the place I loved to inhabit as a kind of portal to other worlds to escape from the mundane.  It was in this small town library that I tackled my first “adult” book, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, as a 12 year old boy.  This was in the midst of a steady diet of SciFi/Fantasy books like Rivets & Sprockets, Escape to the Mushroom Planet, and A Wrinkle in Time.  This is also the library that my grandfather visited and inked out all the bad words in the book he was reading b/c he found them offensive.  

Libraries still hold a kind of thrall over me.  It saddens me that my kids do not likely share this feeling as the technological monolith of screens has eclipsed our cultural existence.  We have externalized an internal process, which is indicative of a regression in terms of human development.  I think of the melancholy protagonist of George Orwell’s 1984 trying to hide himself from the obligatory screen in his room that watches everyone’s activities.  We have finally arrived at this dystopian reality by way of a rampant consumerism that stalks our viewing and online habits.  

Paradoxically, I believe the library remains an archaically disconnected place that can connect us on a deeper level as a community if we so choose.

***

Paperbacks & Prayers

Paperback books are like prayer, 

you can take them wherever you go.  

There is never an excuse to be bored 

when worlds are at your fingertips 

and God himself leans in to listen.

It’s like St. Augustine hearing the

child’s voice, “take up and read.”

***

A Beatles Remnant

I grow old 

because Lennon can’t.

I carry on

with a bit of his slant.

Watching the wheels

Prescribing the pills

An aging shrink

and Beatles remnant.

***

The Waking Ones

In the evening hours

when others 

have found a bed

I have found a book,

gladly trading 

my sleeping dreams

for waking ones.

***

The Vine & the Trellis

Icon of the Root of Jesse - 16^th c. Michael Damaskinos

This past Sunday the prescribed Gospel reading was the Parable of the Sower.  In it the sower (God) scatters the seeds of His grace liberally onto the ground of our hearts and it is the condition of our heart which determines whether the resulting plant will grow, sputter, or die.  The underlying question is “What are you doing to prepare healthy soil for the reception of God’s grace?”  It is a synergy, not a one-sided affair.  Love is reciprocal and requires cooperation, does it not?

As I think about my recent posting of “The McCarty Trinity” another metaphor comes to mind that dovetails with the one found in holy scripture.  I mentioned that Kevin’s journey into the Orthodox Church “grounded him and provided a structure for him to grow in and through.”  This morning I added the words “like a trellis” because that is the image that comes to mind.

I like this metaphor.  In my mind the seed has found the good (or at least adequate) soil but it is the structure of the church as a trellis that allows the vine to find purchase and grow upwards towards the sun instead of spreading out over the ground to be trampled in the dirt of one’s ego.  In this elevated and supported position it flowers and fruits optimally to the benefit of everyone.

The church-as-trellis provides the tools and opportunities to grow to include things like corporate prayer (liturgy), almsgiving, confession, and the Eucharist, among other things.  And as I write this I’m reminded that Jesus talked about the “vinedresser.”  A quick Google search brings me this:

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.  Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit... I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”   John 15:1-2 and 5

So the metaphor is complete and cross-referenced.  Grow, be healthy, extend your branches with the help of the church to capture the sun, give shade to those who suffer, food for their sustenance, and even provide kindling from God’s prunings b/c nothing is wasted... and on it goes.

Hide & Seek

I love to play hide and seek with the world

where I hide so well that I cannot be found.

I hunch down between my two ears and

peer mischievously through the eye holes

as others circle and look, calling my name. 

There is a stream of words and thoughts

that occupy my time while I wait to be 

discovered and doors that open and close

like a subconscious escape hatch leading 

to a dizzying number of destinations.

On very rare occasions someone finds me

by asking the right questions and recognizes

the boy sitting in the dark waiting to be 

birthed into a world that has seldom under-

stood him and his peculiar unfulfilled needs. 


***

The McCarty Trinity

After Kevin passed away I was gifted a trove of his sketches as well as pictures of some of his paintings to include a casual portrait of yours truly.  I thought I’d gone through it all several years ago and knew the contents of the box to include his manually typed “Who Am I?” that he’d written for a college class in 1987 (a good 2-3 years before I’d met him).  What I discovered yesterday when going through the box was a picture of a painting he’d done of a trio of men that I’d never seen before.  

I seem to recollect him telling me of an opportunity to stay with friends in a small town in Kentucky where he could hang out and paint “the locals” as it were.  He was excited for the opportunity and he described some of the settings to include a pool hall where he could set up his easel and talk to the people there.

Because of his near-blindness he was always dependent on the good will and charity of others to include things like transportation, room & board.  But what he paid back in love and his capacity for limitless conversation is hard to put a price on.  He was also not beneath bartering his paintings when need’s be.  And there was the enthusiasm of the work itself and the possibilities that we as his friends knew lay dormant in his artistic gift waiting to find the right opportunity to express itself.

His apartment was full of canvas’s in various stages of development. This was in part due to the fact that he was not one to paint from imagination, but needed the thing to be present.  It was most often a person which required someone to be available for multiple sittings.  Many if not most of those people could not supply the requisite time he needed to finish a full canvas.  And even this was not the only limiting factor.  His ability to focus the time and energy required with his poor eye sight was not always possible and he would reach his limits.  

This was most clearly seen in a painting he started in his apartment of a still life.  He’d gotten enough money together to buy a certain type of purple paint that was very expensive and he was excited to use it.  In his small apartment kitchen he set up an elaborate multi-tiered scene of a white antique-looking ceramic pitcher with matching bowls on waves of cloth and surrounded by draperies that hung about it.  Interspersed throughout were clusters of grapes and grapefruit in what was a truly beautiful combination of color and form (I wish I’d taken a picture of it!).  He started it but when I returned to visit him another time it was not finished, the fruit was wilted, and the scene soon disappeared as did the canvas with its ample traces of purple paint.

But here in my hand was a picture of three elderly men that looked to be complete.  It is a trinity of sorts with the possibility of theological meaning in their grouping, posture, and colors like in a bonafide Orthodox icon.  Orthodoxy was the Faith that he embraced over a ten year period that included a protracted struggle with cancer that eventually took him but not before it claimed his eyesight completely.  This faith grounded him and provided a structure for him to grow in and through, like a trellis; growth that I would have never thought possible in the “old” Kevin I’d met all those years ago struggling with his ego and held fast in a kind of insecure arrogance.  

And what remains are the memories he left us: a box of sketches and pictures as well as paintings scattered throughout the Midwest, one of which hangs over my fireplace and beautifies my home.

***

The Crow King

He stood on the bridge 

alternating his gaze 

from water to skyline

skyline to water

and then up at the clouds

his head in yes-motion.

Wherever his vision lit

he found no place 

for his head to rest

or body to nest

but if he lingered

he’d face arrest.

So the time was here

to fly, to die, to cry out 

against the cold city

with its impersonal

charity cheaply bought

and grudgingly wrought. 

He was the Crow King

freefall in full swing

wondering what death brings

if not some kind of relief

to a life too brief

living lost and alone.

***

Three Dreams, Same Scene, All She’s

At least three different times I fell into a dream of a similar setting.  Each time it culminated dramatically, I woke up, and then re-entered the setting with a slightly different scene.

The similarities lie in the fact it was a very large rectangular room, maybe twenty feet across and 40 feet long.  The outside wall w/windows was on the left from my perspective and opposite it on my right was the parallel wall with two doors that opened to a hallway.  It looked to be a very long studio apartment or two college dorm rooms with the intervening wall removed.

There was a kind of division between the two sides of the room.  On one side was my bed in a corner, but surrounding it was an office-type set up with desks, lamps, filing cabinets, etc, and a door.  The other side of the room was a kind of lounging area with a sofa and chairs surrounding a common area that had its own door to the hallway.  On the outside wall of the lounge area between the windows were some large suspended cabinets.  

***

I am lying in the bed and the lights are out.  There is someone sleeping at my back and I’m not quite sure who it is.  I slowly roll over enough to look and it is a woman with her hair almost completely gone, kind of growing in tufts like a dog with mange.  I suddenly feel like my life is in danger and the only answer is to kill this person before she kills me.  I grab her around the neck to strangle her and her malevolent yellow eyes open and then narrow as she raises a gun up from the covers and I know I am about to die and... I wake up.

I lie in bed frightened and unsure of where I am.  It slowly dawns on me that I am alive and was only dreaming.  Then I fall back asleep w/o fully awakening.

***

I am in that room again.  There has been some activity on the office side and a secretary tells me there is a patient who wants to see me even though it is in the evening and my office hours are long over.  It is a sister of a colleague and so I agree and she comes in and starts talking to me about a crisis she is in.  I am fascinated by how much she resembles her sister.  After she leaves the secretary informs me there is someone hanging out in the hallway and I realize it is a lady from our church who has been stalking me with the intent to do me harm.  I peek out the door and see her standing under what appears to be a street light.  She turns her head to look at me with a menacing glare and... I wake up.  

I am back in my bed and I listen closely to see if I can sense anything out of the ordinary in the house and then fall back to sleep.

*** 

I am in the bed in the corner of the room once again.  There is a little light trickling in through the windows but not much.  I sense something is amiss and I sit up in bed and look about the room.  I don’t see anything.  I get out of bed and as I step towards the middle of the room I realize a woman with black hair is sitting with her back to me on the border b/w the two areas nearest the windows.  I stop dead and dare not move.  She is radiating a kind of coldness and there is a faint glow in front of her from the windows that gives away her outline in the dark.  I am too terrified to move until she starts to turn her head in my direction and I bolt for the door and... I wake up.

This time I can hear the fan running in my son’s room and I seriously consider getting up and checking out the house.  Instead I get up and peek out into the hall, see nothing is amiss, go use the bathroom, and then get back into bed.  

***

Sleep comes and draws me back into that elongated room.  I want to check it out in the dark, but don’t want to walk around bumping into furniture and whatnot, so instead I float upwards with my arms and legs dangling below me.  It is something that I know is peculiar but within my control to do.  I float over the desks and then over to the lounge area where there are CPR-like mannequins littering the floor and on the furniture.  I pass over them and am near the door on that side of the room when I notice the mannequin on the couch is different.  I has a shiny white face with sharp nose and pinkish-red hair that converges back into a point.  It reminds me of the cartoon version of The Joker.  Suddenly the eyes pop open and fix me with a stare of  pure hatred.  I fall to the floor no longer able to float and tear out into the hallway.  I run down the stairs grabbing the banister at each landing to whip myself around and down to the next level until the darkness completely envelops me and I awaken in my bed relieved that it was just a dream.

I sense it must be getting close to morning but it is still too early to get up so I doze back off.

***

And did I say “three dreams”?  I guess there were more, but this last one happened twice in slightly different ways so it is hard to nail down (with dream logic and all).  What was the same was the door of one of the large hung cabinets swung open and inside was a freakishly tall woman in fetal position with thin limbs and a kind of bouffant blond hairdo.  She may have been dead or simply animated in some way that was not natural.  All I know is that when she stepped awkwardly out of the cabinet I bolted out the door and down the steps as before, but this time I made it to the street and then tried to double back up the other flight of stairs only to run into her coming down.  She had figured out my ploy and I was caught.  Those branch-like arms reached down for me and... 

I awoke one last time feeling like I had been dreaming off and on throughout the entire night revisiting that large room and being terrorized by a coterie of macabre femme fatales.


***

Letter to a Middle School Coach

Hey Coach D,

I feel I need to reach out tonight because of some concerns I have as a parent.  E is extremely frustrated tonight and I cannot say that I blame him.  He played well tonight in the few minutes he was given, but in general they are so few that there is little opportunity for him to get traction or grow as a player.  There were several opportunities to get other players in the game tonight that were missed considering our lead and it became obvious to me that things were starting to get overly sloppy as players were getting tired because they were being played too much.  

To be perfectly honest, I do not know what message is being sent or what overall goals are being met by playing J for 90 plus percent of every game to the exclusion of others.  From a development stand point I believe it is short sighted to give some players most of the time and leave others on the bench so much at this level.  I have to say that in our basketball experiences through AAU and other communities our school has a reputation for not adequately developing all its players prior to high school which frustrates the program gaining success at that higher level.

Middle school is the time to allow kids to grow and develop their skills under the pressure of game time situations.  I see other schools subbing kids in and out throughout the game much more than we do.  I do not want to see my kid’s love for the game to diminish b/c his hard work is not being rewarded or he is not being given the chance to bloom.  He was gaining confidence through AAU in the Spring and the Summer League and playing extremely well at times, but now I feel he is stalling and not being developed to his full potential which breaks my heart as his father.

I greatly appreciate the time you are spending with our kids and I respect your coaching skills and your character.  I know you cannot make everyone happy all the time in your position, but I just wanted to point out these things as it is directly impacting my son in a way that I feel is not wholly positive and I want to see him succeed.

Respectfully yours,

A

Eating Myself

The balding head

The broken nose

The trick ankle and

Love of crows

All so very ridiculous!

The numberless books

The pointless rhymes

The need to be needed

And thankless crimes.

Where should I go?

Trapped in a life

Thoughtless and cruel

Eating myself

Ego as gruel.

***

Early Morning Apocalypse

The horizon was set on fire by a tremendous fireball

ostensibly ending any possibility of life on earth as

he sat weeping in his car for the sorrow of it all,

waiting to be enveloped and utterly incinerated,

except it was the sun bursting through his car’s

windshield, blinding him on his morning commute.

***

The Joker on a Jacket

The Joker jacket was laughing at me,

gifted by a friend in a dream whose

meaning only Freud could guess at.

It was just so random and those are 

the types of dreams that provide the

best fodder for the probing analyst.

It was a gray zip-up type jacket with 

a collar and the original comic book 

Joker slanting across the front of it.

I was thrilled to get it, like I was ten 

again and arguing with my neighbor-

hood friend, “who is better, DC or...

Marvel?” I would choose Marvel but

there was no denying the draw of 

Batman and his nemesis, the Joker.  

Was it because he is “crazy” and I 

am a shrink?  A mind on the brink?

Hard to tell, but what do you think?  

***

“a land called Honalee”

It was the closest body of water to my childhood home at the southern edge of a small town in Indiana.  It could be seen from the highway that split the town in two if you were paying attention and didn’t blink, just north of the sewage treatment facility.  In retrospect, it was likely created from runoff from this facility, but to a kid it was a magical place we dubbed “Honalee” after the land of Puff the Magic Dragon.

And when I say “we” I mean myself and Ricky.  We lived two houses apart on the same road that constituted the southernmost border of Orleans, Indiana.  There were arguments about who saw it first and what it would be called.  There were always arguments between us which were mostly just attempts to shore up our insecurities or to try and assert some kind of dominance over the other.  Ricky won the naming war with “Honalee” and I had to admit I liked it.

The thing to do was create a seaworthy craft to explore the pond of Honalee even though it couldn’t have been more than twenty foot across and about thirty or forty foot long.  The idea came from finding a wooden pallet in the weeds that could serve as a raft.  The next step was to find an inner tube from a car or truck that we could inflate, the bigger the better.  When this was found and transported across the highway we lashed it to the bottom of the pallet with rope and found a long branch to navigate with, a la Huckleberry Finn.

I don’t remember who attempted to shove off first, but there was only room for one.  I am sure there was an argument about it.  I was short and skinny, Ricky less so by a good bit, so it was probably me who attempted the maiden voyage.  It was exceedingly wobbly and not a very practical craft.  I remember shoes and partial legs getting submerged from slips and missteps which, considering the source of the water, is pretty gross.  

We must have lost interest pretty soon thereafter because I do not remember any more adventures on Honalee after that.  And now that I think about it I seem to recall that Ricky’s Mom found out what was going on and explained the sewage connection, forbidding any further visits.  But for a few days there in my childhood it was something new, exciting, and full of possibilities.  For a brief moment we had created a magical place from the communal muck of our little town.

***

The Stowaway

He was a stowaway on an intergalactic freighter that had stalled just outside an arm of the Milky Way.  It was during the troubleshooting process that his hiding place was discovered and assumptions made about who had caused the problem.  He was sent out the airlock in an expired but functioning suit.  They weren’t barbarians after all.

And then the ship disappeared into the inner swirl of stars leaving him to float effortlessly in the void.  He did not know how long he had to live, but it hadn’t felt like he was really very much alive for quite some time now.  Who leaves what they know for what they don’t?  It had been a flight into the unknown, looking for something resembling hope.

He tried to orient himself towards the light of the stars swirling in numberless variations and put the blackness of space at his back.  He’d read about something like this once back on earth where people jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge invariably faced the city lights and not the blackness of an impersonal ocean.  Ancient history, but pertinent nonetheless.

His heartbeat and breathing created a kind of rhythm that was calming.  It may have been an illusion, but the stars appeared to pulse in sync to this inner music.  For the first time in his life there was nothing to worry about because there was nothing to change.  He was just a part of the whole which required no effort, only acceptance.

And there was time enough to slip into timelessness.  Oxygen depletion would be slow and relatively painless if his body could adjust to it with a gradual lessening of consciousness.  He felt its pull and did not resist.  As he opened his mouth wide for one last yawn he saw the galaxy and a billion others rush in, like inhaling the fragrance from a field of wildflowers.

A Walk in the Park

“A walk in the park” 

means something is easy

and I guess it is

my 8 year old 

daughter holding 

my hand, arms swinging

we talk about 

things that 

make us laugh

and she gathers 

what is to be gathered

from trees

along the path

*pick-pluck-pick*

and places them

carefully in the

cargo pocket

of my pants

until that night

when she falls 

off to sleep

and I find the 

forgotten foragings

still there

like a half-remembered

promise to be

good and kind.